Innovative musicians/dancers with a quirky neo-trad soul, Oakland, California-based Evie Ladin & Keith Terry throw down original folk songs and deep interpretations of old songs, with the kinetic thrill of percussive dance. A prolific singer-songwriter, dancer and square dance caller, the polyrhythmic heat of Evie's clawhammer banjo has been heard from A Prairie Home Companion to Celtic Connections, Lincoln Center to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Evie grew up in a trad folk scene up and down the Eastern Seaboard of the US. Her family home was always open to musicians and dancers traveling through, her family vacations at festivals and music camps. Starting banjo at 8, clogging since 5, Evie is fluid in traditional Appalachian arts, even as she brings an urban edge and contemporary vision to her own stories, deep interpretations of old songs, contemporary percussive dance. Folk music in her family life, early urban hip hop in her teen life, diving deep into the African side of old-time country music and dance…Music, dance and song became inseparable forms as they are in traditional cultures.
Trained as a jazz drummer, Keith brings tonal percussion to stand-up bass, is a renowned percussionist/rhythm dancer, the founder of the International Body Music Festival, and a collaborator with a host of inventive performers from Bobby McFerrin, Tex Williams and Robin Williams, to Turtle Island Quartet, Charles “Honi” Coles and Bill Irwin.
~Presents~
Quotes
"Ladin sings and plays infectious clawhammer banjo, while Terry is a master percussionist. It was Appalachian string band music pared to the absolute minimum of accompaniment, but packed with an orchestra’s worth of rhythm." - Music City roots, Nashville
"(An) arrestingly fun show, bursting with talent.. every song, dance solo, and mid-number banjo breakdown was following by vigorous clapping and hollers." – Smile Politely, Champaign-Urbana
"You don’t often hear words like “traditional,” and “authentic” paired with “innovative” and “unique,” but Evie Ladin & Keith Terry have brought them together brilliantly ... and the result is truly a high point in new old-time music." – Folkworks, Los Angeles
"Using any surface for its rhythmic possibilities, Terry claps his hands, rubs his palms, finger-pops, stamps his feet, brushes his soles, slaps his butt and belly, pops his cheek, whomps his chest, skips and slides, sings and babbles and coughs, building his music out of a surprisingly varied register of sounds and clever rhythmic variations." – Village Voice